


How the Distance Learns to Grow

by newredshoes



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Gen, Jewish Barry Allen, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-26 08:04:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17742098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newredshoes/pseuds/newredshoes
Summary: The Streak doesn’t have a daemon. Iris has to know why.





	How the Distance Learns to Grow

The reports were sketchy — they always were, when there were still so few of them. She knew it, she’d suspected it, but it was entirely different to see it right in front of her. Iris searched, but he was alone, the figure in front of her was flesh and blood and alone. She had to breathe through it. 

“Where’s your daemon?” She clutched instinctively at Franklin on her shoulder. Her civet dug his claws into her skin; he was tough to ruffle, but he was pressing himself close to her neck, shivering.

The Streak kept his face blurred. Still, Iris thought she saw him smile, just a small, reassuring gesture. “She’s fine,” he said, in a thrumming, fractured voice. “We’re fine. She has to stay secret, though.”

Iris swallowed. “Just like you.”

He bowed his head. The next instant, he’d circled behind her, a Tesla coil lightning storm at the back of Jitters. “What can I do for you, Miss West?”

She could feel the air around him crackling at her spine. Her eyes darted around the café; maybe his daemon was hiding close by. What kind of creature was she looking for? “Tell me more. I just want some basics.” Iris laughed, not entirely from nerves. “That’s not true, I want to know everything, but — just tell me something about yourself!”

The Streak chuckled, almost beneath hearing. “Don’t my actions speak for me?”

“Sure,” she said, tensing, and Franklin did too. “But the city should have your context. Especially because no one has ever seen your daemon.”

Iris stole another glance. People could live without daemons, but they were destroyed — victims of war crimes, tortured, untethered from themselves. The Streak in his red suit with its gold flashes looked young and alive and vibrant, overjoyed to be in the world. The space around him carried a thunderstorm whiff, an elemental hint of ozone that almost set her at ease. Iris imagined herself snatching at words in his wake, catching them like fireflies to release when she’d lined them up.

“I just want to help people,” the Streak finally said. “And to be totally honest, my list starts with you.”

*

When Marion huffed her unimpressed Rottweiler huff at Joe’s side, it was almost always for one reason and one reason only: Eddie’s puma daemon was purring, and Eddie hadn’t noticed yet to try and cover up why. 

Sigrun only purred when Iris was around, because no matter how either of them played it, Joe’s partner was not and never would be smooth. Still, Joe liked to see Iris get the drop on him, so he let himself be surprised when she strolled up to his desk. “Hey, baby girl,” he said, all smiles, but watched Eddie light up out of the corner of his eye.

She leaned down for a quick hug; Franklin slipped past Marion’s big paws to settle next to Iris’s neck-breaker heels. “Hey, Dad. Hey, Eddie.” She grinned too, still giddy to be open about this thing the two of them had.

Eddie was already on his feet with his dopey smile. “Hi.”

Joe sat back in his chair, Marion wagging her stub of a tail. “What’s up, kiddo?” he said.

“I actually have a research question for you,” she said, in the same tone she used to use asking for more craft supplies or video rentals. “How would I find out more on people who can separate from their daemons?”

Marion sprang to her feet, her hackles high. There could only be so many reasons why Iris would ask that, and Joe would have to have a word with Barry about any of them. He reached for Marion. He kept his voice calm. “Why would you want to know about that?”

“That’s horrible stuff, Iris,” Eddie interjected. Sigrun lashed her tail; both of them had gone professional, guarded.

“The technical parts alone…” Joe shook his head. “You don’t want that stuff in your head.”

“Thanks for the warning label.” Her mouth thinned, though mostly for show. Joe knew how to read her. “But I’m asking for a reason.”

Eddie sighed. “Not the Streak again.”

“He has a daemon!” she exclaimed. “I’m sure of it. But being apart from her doesn’t hurt either of them.”

“You don’t know that,” Marion muttered. Franklin scoffed; Iris squared her shoulders. 

“That’s only supposed to happen to witches,” she continued, “and obviously the Streak isn’t a witch.”

Marion stepped away a pace, ears pricked toward the elevators; Joe felt it too, that urge to fidget, to hide from the question, anything to avoid lying. He tried: “That sounds more like Barry’s thing than mine, sweetheart.”

Iris hitched her satchel further up her shoulder. “Yeah, well. I’m asking you.”

Joe thought about Barry upstairs, puttering around his lab and avoiding her too. It got him again, that sick, sliced-open feeling he still had seeing Barry’s daemon wandering STAR Labs alone; hell, that thick chill that used to grip him when he watched them during the coma, nestled together on that wide hospital bed.

“Hey.” Eddie had circled the desks; he put one hand on Iris’s shoulder. “That’s the worst of the worst of what we deal with,” he said gently. “It’s hard to talk about off the cuff.”

“I know, but—” She blinked. Joe looked down to see Sigrun brush up against Franklin. Iris caught herself, but Joe knew she was still hungry for that ugly question. “All right,” she said at last, and tossed off a quick smile. “I was just stopping by after my shift. Love you.”

“See you at home,” Joe said as she kissed him on the cheek. His eyes were already back on his computer screen when she and Eddie turned to each other.

*

Most days, Caitlin could filter out Cisco thinking things through with Milagros. She knew Iris could too, after all the time she’d spent at STAR Labs when Barry was comatose. Today, however, it wasn’t just that Cisco was pacing, his fingers threaded behind his head as he mumbled about power-source half-life. Milagros was perched on his skull, beatboxing. When she’d first met Cisco, Caitlin had been confused by his flamboyant, sassy blue macaw. She’d seen him be testy with Hartley, and deferential with Dr. Wells, but mostly, at least with her, he was quiet and sweet. 

Guiscard laid a huge padded paw on her hand, and she caught his eye. _And grieving,_ she reminded herself. She hadn’t known him long before they were all traumatized and grieving. Milagros took a while to make sense. Now the two of them simply fit, and there was no other option.

She felt the same way about Guiscard, of course. There had been a period in childhood when she’d resisted any shape that complemented her surname, but ultimately, she was at peace with the truth that Dr. Caitlin Snow really was the other half of an Arctic hare.

“Anyway,” said Iris, and Caitlin blinked.

“Yes,” she said. “Interesting question.” She scooped up Guiscard from the table and strolled toward the main console. His thick coat against her bare arms always brought her back to herself. “Most of the research on daemon separation comes from unethical experimentation, no matter how old it is. In the 19th century, scientists were even exploring intercision as a source of ‘galvanic power.’”

“Yeah, I’ve read some of those accounts. Messed up doesn’t begin to cover it.” Iris shook her head, though Caitlin could tell it was partly for show, for Caitlin’s benefit; Iris was good at keeping emotion out of facts, which Caitlin respected and appreciated.

“Those aren’t the only sources we have, though.” Caitlin tapped out a few search strings, and the computer brought up a small trove of U.S. government documents. “In 1956, a 30-year-old woman was hiking with two friends at Yellowstone when she fell into a river and was swept away before her daemon, a goat, could go after her. The current was so strong that they were separated by over three and a half miles by the time she was recovered, alive.”

“Jesus,” Franklin muttered at their feet.

“But she was okay?” Iris crossed her arms. “The woman and her daemon?”

“She had suffered some head trauma and hypothermia, but ultimately, yes. They had a perfectly functional bond for the rest of their lives.” Caitlin turned back to the monitor. “She sat for a number of interviews over the years, though the task force that collected them and others is still low-level classified. Want me to print them out for you?”

Iris furrowed her brow. “You can do that?”

Caitlin glanced at Guiscard, who flicked an ear, and she shrugged.

Iris laughed. “Look at you, Caitlin Snowden.”

“Are we breaking federal laws on company time, Dr. Snow?” The motor on Dr. Wells’ wheelchair was disarmingly silent, but at least the note in his voice was wry, rather than warning.

She spun the chair to face him in the doorway. “Technically this is my lunch break?”

Dr. Wells merely smiled, that fond, enigmatic, barely perceptible motion across his face and eyes. “Miss West,” he said with a nod as he fully entered the Cortex. “Always a pleasure.”

“Likewise.” Iris slipped both hands into her back pockets. “Caitlin was just telling me about some interesting history of science things.”

“Really?” said Dr. Wells, at the same moment Milagros belted “BOOM shakalakalaka!”

“Sorry!” Cisco called from the other side of the room. He hustled past the three of them, with a nod and an audible “Oh girl, we got it!” before he broke into a run down the hall.

Caitlin had to laugh. She’d seen more of this Cisco since Barry woke up. It was nice, having them both around. It brought something to this place that STAR Labs hadn’t known it was missing.

Dr. Wells removed his glasses and began polishing them on his shirt. His owl daemon shuffled awkwardly on his shoulder. “I didn’t know history of science was an interest of yours, Miss West.”

“Not as such,” Iris said. “But it sounds like there are some old case studies about daemon separation that might help with a story I’m working on.”

“Really? Daemon separation?” Dr. Wells dropped his eyes as he slipped his glasses back on. “Interesting. Fascinating stuff. Barbaric, though,” he said softly. “For barbaric times.” His daemon clacked her beak.

Caitlin had worked with Dr. Wells for years, but she still didn’t know his daemon’s name. She didn’t confuse her like Cisco’s had, but there were moments, in private, when Caitlin wondered if perhaps Wells and his daemon had settled too early. It was usually something only admitted in confessional essays and prestige literary fiction. Caitlin did sometimes wonder if they both wished she was something else. It was such a private thing, though, and she always admonished herself for speculating. After all, a daemon only needs to make sense to one person.

“Well, Miss West,” Dr. Wells continued. “I trust you will remain discreet in your inquiries, whatever your reasons for them.” He bowed his head briefly. “That’s a skill that will serve you well in life.”

*

In some other universe, Iris could afford to live on her own at 25. But grad school was probably expensive everywhere, so here she was in her childhood bedroom, papers spread out on her full-sized bed. Franklin was settled catlike on her closed laptop — her very own distraction monitor.

“I can’t stop thinking about it,” he said. Iris set down her printout. “The Streak,” Franklin continued. His paws kneaded at the comforter. “Something terrible must have happened, to separate him and his daemon.”

“Terrible things happen every day,” she replied, but she felt it too, the horror she couldn’t stop tonguing like the socket of a lost tooth. Whenever she’d learned as a child about some new atrocity in history class or in literature, it would haunt her for weeks: the Middle Passage, the antebellum slavers, the Holocaust, the Inquisition, the Crusades. Franklin would make himself small, a dormouse so she could hide and keep him anywhere, at the slightest chance of snatching; he would grow into a monstrous python, so she could lie nestled in his coils, daring anyone to come between them. It was history, though. It was abstract. She never worried about anyone coming after her at home. She had her father. That loss couldn’t touch her there.

Iris reached for Franklin. She buried her fingers in the fur at his ruff. The contact felt warm, vulnerable. Both were shivery underneath their skins. When Barry came into their household, Iris had never seen someone go through such a trauma in real life. Her own mother was dead, but she hardly remembered that, and the Wests were happy. Late that terrible night, when Dad had brought him in, Barry had nothing but his backpack and his wide eyes. His shoes were tied too tight. Shayna was just a sparrow in one hand, pressed fluttering against his chest. She didn’t settle until Barry was almost 15.

“I guess I shouldn’t be so glib,” Iris murmured. Franklin leaned his shoulder into her knee. 

The moment broke apart at the ping of an app notification. Her cell phone buzzed across the sheets. Iris picked it up and tapped her passcode.

Franklin got to his feet and stretched. “What is it?”

“Streak sightings,” she said, and looked back over her not-terribly-legal printouts. If the Streak was out and about tonight, she’d have a pile of emails by tomorrow morning, most unhelpful but some just enough to triangulate with police scanner reports. So much for their encounter; if the Streak wanted her to stop writing about him, he’d have to give her far less to write about. Another sound, from downstairs: the heft of the front door opening.

“Joe?”

Iris closed her eyes. Barry had every right to be here. It was his home too, even if he paid rent for that grimy studio downtown. But he didn’t have a right to her time and attention — not when he was being so shitty about the Streak. Anyway, he was here to see her dad. They could believe each other. All she’d have to do was wait him out.

*

He learned this later, that when Singh and Vukuvich found him after the lightning strike, Shayna had been blown clear across the lab from him. Barry could see it in how both men checked in with him, even now, checking for his daemon in that half-second after eye contact. Police see all kinds of terrible things in the course of a normal day; to see one of their own, a kid not even meant for the field, alive but alone, hadn’t left them yet.

It had been trailing him all day, how shaken Iris was to see him unmoored like that. Shayna had insisted, though. “There’s no way we don’t get found out,” she’d said, again and again. “You can’t hide me with a mask.”

Of course not: Everyone knew the sight of them, Barry Allen and his hip-high, equally leggy dog, both of them lean and soft, both of whom could never be small again. She was a courser of no particular breed, long-nosed and white with a strong whip of a tail. Running with her felt like recognizing her every time, that Saturday morning in high school when Barry had woken up and known she was just right at last.

Iris had been the first person he’d told then. He’d knocked on her door and she’d groaned something unintelligible on the other side, but Barry was electric with certainty, and finally she’d said he could come in. Franklin had settled nearly two years earlier — it seemed absurd that he’d be anything else at this point, and he’d wrestled with Shayna, ragging on her for getting so damn big forever. Iris had hugged Barry so hard when she woke up enough.

He could see her light on from outside the house. He knew she was there, and that she wouldn’t come out to see him now, or let him in if he asked. It was all Barry wanted, to tell her, to tell her everything. Every time Joe admonished him, though, he could see Marion shaking. _Keep her safe,_ he’d say. _You have to keep her safe._ Barry was certain Joe thought he only meant Iris.

Shayna nosed his hand. Absently, he stroked the smooth center of her skull, with just his fingertips.

Joe emerged from the kitchen after Barry let himself in. He frowned, though his eyes danced. “What, no laundry?”

Barry smiled. “Nope, just me.”

Marion trotted right up to Shayna and fussed over her, both daemons’ tails wagging. Joe pointed over his shoulder. “I got leftover casserole I just put in the fridge. Want me to take it out again?”

Barry was always hungry these days, and that casserole was what got him through CSI school applications, so he followed Joe past the steps upstairs and into the kitchen. Shayna and Marion flopped down together on the tile. Barry rifled through the refrigerator and Joe took up his station washing dishes.

“You’re welcome to speed-clean that out any time,” he said as Barry shut the fridge door.

Barry chuckled. “Hey, it’s supposed to be no rest for the wicked.” He felt it in the room, Joe’s warmth and Marion’s bulk leaning against Shayna. This would always feel right — nothing about it had changed. 

He’d looked: At first after waking up, after realizing what he and Shayna could do, he’d tried to understand if something was wrong with them, if some circuitry had been disrupted. Oliver, after all, had been tortured into this ability. His leopard daemon could be blocks, miles away and Oliver would hardly flinch. She would crush another daemon’s windpipe or even attack a human, and still they could appear in the papers the next day, louche and languid and fully in touch with each other.

The microwave patiently reheated the casserole. Barry had only just gotten a bite in when Joe spoke up. “Iris is looking into daemon separation,” he said, his back still turned. “Says it’s for a story.”

“That’s pretty horrible stuff.” Barry swallowed. He glanced at Shayna, and at Marion’s expectant look back at him. “I didn’t tell her anything.”

Joe leaned against the sink, dishrag still in hand. “Okay, but where did she get that idea at all?”

Barry wanted to say what was true, that each second was still and shining, that saving people meant handling their daemons and there was something wild and vulnerable about that every time, that Iris was too smart not to figure this all out and they were all doomed when she did, that he’d never loved Shayna more than when he’d had to stand apart from her, that he knew himself better than he’d ever thought possible, and he was still scared sometimes that that would make things worse.

“You know Iris,” Shayna said, still curled against Marion’s side. She spoke to the room far more calmly than Barry felt. “She’s thorough. She wants context. And she just wants to help people.”

It was getting easier, more instinctive, to slip into his speed. “We can’t tell him,” he pleaded, as the kitchen hung motionless around them. “He needs this.”

Shayna stayed where she was. “Do you really want to work this hard to keep up a lie? We need this.” She slipped out of their speed without him. Barry pinched the bridge of his nose. Iris wanted to save him from complacency, to lift up the impossible, to give him hope. Shayna knew all that. She’d been hiding on the roof at Jitters, and felt every word. The room slowed down again.

“I know why Iris is so hellbent on writing up the Streak,” he said. Joe finished crossing his arms. Barry felt the air go clear. Shayna craned her neck to stretch; something between them fluttered and thrummed.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, you recognize this title from the Tori Amos song "China." Yes, I'm not sorry. Yes, there's going to be more of these, 'cause [that's how I get](https://archiveofourown.org/series/2114) with daemon AUs.
> 
> All the thanks to Rawles and theladyscribe for their notes and encouragement. ♥


End file.
